


Punishment

by Moonfallthefox



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Angst, Confessional Sex, Drug Use, M/M, Post-War, Public Sex, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28970070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonfallthefox/pseuds/Moonfallthefox
Summary: It started as work, until an impromptu experiment has Anderson thoroughly humiliated.Post warEstablished relationshipsThe vines are sensitiveDubconPunishmentGuilt
Relationships: Alexander Anderson/Enrico Maxwell
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

The pale, shimmering dawn's light slanted through the windows of the chapel, leaving brilliantly colored patterns on the stone floor.  
For the first time since the battle, Anderson had been allowed to take confession. He still grappled with guilt, and rage, and mostly pain. He hated himself for what he'd done. Somehow it was worse now than ever. Enrico wasn't dead, that would have been easier, and the angry searching in his eyes was enough to make Alexander sick. The scarring that marred his once beautiful body served as a constant reminder of the horror what he did, and what he had become.

Monster.   
It echoed in his mind. Monster.   
Prone now to fits of uncontrollable rage, Anderson was no longer permitted to be around the orphans. He was too dangerous. Now he paced, angry at the world in his dark room, only coming out to kill, to take life.

But today he came out. The dawn called him like a siren song, familiar and safe, a routine he'd performed a hundred times.   
The hard bench of the confessional was comforting to him. Like nothing had changed.   
But everything had changed, hadn't it?  
Enrico said he loved him still, but his words rang empty and hollow now, like he heard them through glass. Monster. He saw it in the eyes of the living and heard it in the funeral processions, so many, endless. Over and over, accusing him for his failures. He didn't succeed, and death didn't have the decency to take him. 

This early, no one ever came to confess. He had always enjoyed these times, sipping his coffee in the silence.

Today though, someone did come. Drawn from his thoughts, he sat up, one of his ever present tendrils catching his coffee before he even realized he'd knocked it.   
They remained hidden, just beneath the surface,most of the time, but he had gained control over them, at least when he was calm, and was capable of using them to carry items or perform other menial tasks. It turned out they only grew thorns when he was angry, the rest of the time they were soft, warm, almost like flesh. He could feel everything they touched as if they were his fingers.   
The door to the other side closed.   
He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a familiar voice.  
"Anderson?" It was Enrico. Why was he here?   
"Yeah?" He replied, flicking the divider open. "Why are ye here? Ah'll be stuck here all mornin', ye know." 

"I had..let's say an idea." He purred, in a way that Alexander decided he definitely did not like. But he was in no place to argue, either, not after literally feeding him to the devil.   
"Let me see one of those things." He continued.

"W-why?" Was he going to hurt him? Was this some kind of punishment?   
"You'll see." The velvet voice responded. 

He did it, despite his objections, pressing one of the tendrils through the open divider. Soft gloves wrapped around the appendage, almost petting it, and he entwined it gently around Enrico's fingers.   
Much to his surprise, though, nothing terrible happened. For that matter, his partner was still just stroking it, which to his dismay was having several unwanted effects on his body.   
"Ah dinnae know whae yer doin-" Anderson was cut off when to his amazement the very distinct warmth of Enrico's mouth surrounded the appendage.

Even worse, it was having a very similar effect to if he were sucking on another part of his body. He could feel himself hardening up, the seams of his pants suddenly felt very tight. 

"E-Enrico. Nae here." He whispered, biting back a moan. But he didn't stop what he was doing, trailing his tongue up the bottom of it, teasing with his teeth.   
It was all Alexander could do to silence himself. Maybe this was a punishment, something so cruel he couldn't have ever conceived it himself, to debase and destroy him in this holy place.

It was working, and it wasn't long before Anderson had to stuff another tendril into his own mouth just to restrain his desperate sounds as he bucked helplessly against the constraint of his pants. 

He was pressed against the back wall of the confessional, propping himself up with his vines as he felt Enrico swallow the thing like it was his cock.   
Anderson couldn't help himself now, there was no turning back from the cliff he was hurtling towards.   
He arched his back and shook as climax shook through him like a tidal wave, spilling his copious load down his thigh, soaking his trousers.  
Just as quickly as he'd arrived, Enrico kissed the tip of the tendril and left without a word. 

Anderson still had four hours left in here.


	2. The essence of guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided we needed more torment.  
> TW drug use, guilt, dark as fuck wow wtf is wrong with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sex this chapter. Just sad.

Time had passed so slowly he thought it stood still. Excruciating, to sit in that tiny box with his own semen drying against his thigh. The work itself wasn't so bad, fairly standard complaints- one after the other, he had taken their confessions.

Trying not to think about it, to think about why and what it meant, avoiding his own shame for sullying such a holy place.

Finally, finally it was done. He pulled his coat tightly around himself and rushed to his room. Thankfully his atrocious temper as of late made most of the people he passed avoid him like the plague. Anderson deserved it, he thought. It was fitting, somehow, that the echoes of his failures chased him like rabid hounds, snarling at his heels just waiting to devour what remained of his sanity.

Enrico wasn't Archbishop. Not anymore. He had to pass by his new room to get to his own, treading as lightly as he could.

Not this time though- his boyfriend must have been waiting for him, waiting to see what havoc he'd wrought in retaliation for what he'd done. Alex deserved that too, deserved all of it.   
It was a vicious devil, the guilt, which ate at him so deeply he couldn't escape except through the honey tinged darkness of a needle.

Enrico grinned at him when he stepped out to block his path. "How was confession, father?" There was something venomous in his voice, a sick sort of enjoyment. Revenge, that was what it was, then.   
"Did you...enjoy it?" 

Anderson knew there was no escape from this now, he'd gloat about it and hopefully, forgive him. If that was possible, anymore, forgiveness.   
So despite the gnawing desire to vanish into his own room, into the safe, oozing warmth of his addiction, he went with Enrico when he beckoned.

Unlike his own, Enrico was neurotic about his room. Though smaller than his old one it was spotless, a beautiful antique sofa on one wall, the lavish expanse of a king sized bed with the thickest comforter one could buy along the other. It was the exact opposite of his own room, crowded with books and takeout containers, the nest of a madman on the way to losing his mind completely.

To his surprise, Maxwell wasn't gloating. He was just...staring. Burrowing into him with piercing violet eyes.   
"Come." He finally said. "You need a bath."

No shit sherlock, Anderson wanted to snarl. But he didn't. He followed him to the bathroom, where he peeled off the soiled clothing.

Perhaps because of his previous status, Enrico had been permitted a large bathtub, something Anderson didn't get to have. He was filling it now with steaming water.  
Was this another trick? A plan to punish him further?  
They used to bathe together often. But not since that night. Not anymore. No, now they fucked like rabid beasts, snarling into the dark as if somewhere there was an answer, before retreating to their own rooms, Anderson to his drugs, Enrico to...he didn't know. They rarely spoke, now, the occasional hollow sob of what there used to be, a broken cry into the dark that always went unanswered.

The water was deliciously hot, it smelled like something floral and heady- probably from one of the many tiny bottles of expensive oils Enrico had lining the bathroom shelves.   
Anderson laid his head on the edge and shut his eyes, expecting Enrico to leave him to suffer.   
Much to his amazement though, the familiar feeling of his lover settling in his lap jerked him out of his thoughts. 

He would have given anything to have things back to how they were. Before. His arms moved almost on their own, cradling Enrico, holding him tenderly. He feared that if he spoke, it would break the spell, ruin this tiny shred of normalcy. 

Things weren't the same, no. There were horrid, puckered circular scars across Enrico's chest. His own, the nail jutted from, a constant reminder of what he'd become. But this was as close as they'd gotten yet. 

Maybe one day they could go back, somehow heal the raw pain that chewed at Anderson, somehow forget that night and the hell that had rained down on them both, forget what he'd done. 

The silence was broken with a soft murmur.  
"I forgive you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's a cliffhanger. I promise I'll give you more soon though


	3. Reconciliation

The words took a moment to sink in. Enrico forgave him, why? He hadn't forgiven himself. Every time he shut his eyes he saw the tears in those violet eyes as Enrico gasped and cried out for him.

As he turned away, turned to face a monster in a fight he never meant to survive, its burning red eyes the punctuation to his pain. Anderson had been ready then, to die. He would follow his lover to hell.  
Except he didn't die. That was worse than any hell he could have fathomed- so how could Enrico forgive him? God did not. 

A soft nudge pulled him out of his thoughts. 

"Alex.." 

"Ah heard ye." The priest grumbled, fixing his gaze on a bottle of shampoo that was written all in French, anything to distract himself from the tears threatening to well from his eyes, from the way his heart started to race.  
Was it possible they could ever go back to how things were? Or was that just a foolish fantasy?

"I love you." Enrico continued, running his fingers over the nail in Anderson's chest. "Nothing can change that...not even this."

The tears escaped, Alexander curled into his lover, heaving for breath as the floodgates opened on every confusing emotion he buried.  
After several seconds, he gathered himself enough to choke out, "Ah love ye too..Ah'm sorry."

Sorry. A word that did so little to heal what had been carelessly destroyed. How did one make amends for the ultimate betrayal? There was nothing that could ever reconcile that.

Enrico didn't explain why he saw fit to punish Anderson in that way, and he didn't ask. He held on to the slender Italian and cried, for how long he wasn't sure, but the bath was getting cold by the time he slowed. He felt Enrico shiver, his patience worn down by the temperature, and stood to help him from the water, draping a fluffy towel around both of their shoulders.  
They stood in companionable silence for a while, Enrico working a brush through his hair, Anderson just standing there, watching his lithe body as he worked. The scars marred his back too, the skin rough and pink. 

Despite everything, Enrico had forgiven him. He didn't understand how, or why, but he had. One of his tendrils snuck out to run across the pale skin of his jaw, as Anderson stepped toward him to cradle him against his chest.   
"Lay with me?" He asked, his voice barely above a growling whisper.

"Yes." 

He felt at home for the first time in a long time as he slipped between the sheets, Enrico curling up to rest his face against the priest's pec.   
"We're going to be okay." Enrico murmured as his eyes fluttered shut.


End file.
